What to start organising now
Advice on day to day energy-saving ideas
A summer wedding in Somerset can be absolutely magical. Long evenings, open fields, marquees glowing under festoon lights, relaxed outdoor ceremonies, wildflowers, family farms and the kind of countryside views that make you want to stay outside until the sun disappears.
But the weddings that feel the most relaxed on the day are usually the ones that have had the right amount of thought put into them beforehand. If you are planning a summer wedding for next year, autumn and winter are actually a brilliant time to start getting the foundations in place. You do not need to have every napkin colour chosen or know exactly what flowers will be on every table, but there are a few decisions that are much easier to make early.
As a Somerset wedding planner, coordinator and stylist, I work with couples at lots of different stages of the process. Some come to me with a venue and a vague idea of the feeling they want. Others have already booked half their suppliers and simply need someone to help pull everything together. Both are completely normal. What matters is having a clear plan before the busy summer wedding season gets closer.
Start with the kind of wedding you actually want
Before you start booking suppliers, it helps to get clear on what you want the day to feel like. Do you want something formal or relaxed? A marquee in a field, a barn, a family farm, a tipi, a woodland setting or a traditional venue? Do you want the day to feel rustic and natural, colourful and festival-inspired, or simple and understated?
You do not need a fully formed theme. In fact, I often think weddings work better when couples focus less on creating a “theme” and more on creating a feeling. Once you know how you want the day to feel, the rest becomes much easier. Your venue, styling, flowers, furniture, signage, suppliers and even your timings all start to make more sense.
That is where wedding planning and wedding design overlap. It is not just about how the wedding looks. It is about how every part of the day works together
Book the suppliers that shape the day first
Summer dates are always popular, particularly for countryside weddings in Somerset. If you already have your date and venue, it is worth thinking about the suppliers who will have the biggest impact on how your day runs.
That will usually include your photographer, caterer, marquee or tipi company, florist, entertainment and any specialist suppliers you know are important to you. For a farm, marquee or outdoor wedding, there can also be practical suppliers to consider, including toilets, generators, furniture, lighting, bars and transport.
These are not always the glamorous parts of wedding planning, but they are the parts that make everything else possible. The earlier these pieces are in place, the easier it becomes to build the rest of the wedding around them.
Think about the guest experience, not just the styling
This is one of the biggest differences between simply styling a wedding and properly planning one. A wedding can look beautiful and still feel awkward if the day does not flow well.
Where do guests go when they arrive? What happens if the weather changes? Is there enough time between the ceremony and dinner? Where do people get a drink? Is the walk between spaces realistic for older guests? Who tells everyone when it is time to sit down? These details matter.
When I am helping couples plan and co-ordinate a wedding, I am always thinking about the experience as a whole. The styling is part of that experience, but so are the timings, the layout, the supplier logistics and the way guests move through the day. The best weddings feel effortless because all of those things have been considered quietly in the background.
Summer weddings need a weather plan too
It is very easy to plan a summer wedding assuming the weather will behave. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it absolutely does not.
If you are planning an outdoor ceremony, farm wedding, marquee reception or tipi wedding in Somerset, it is always worth having a Plan B. That might mean deciding where the ceremony moves if it rains, making sure there is enough covered space for guests, thinking about access if the ground becomes wet or having somewhere shaded if the weather turns very hot.
A backup plan does not make your wedding less spontaneous. It actually gives you more freedom to relax because you already know what will happen if the weather changes.
Think about who is actually going to run the day
This is something many couples do not think about until quite late in the planning process. You may have planned every detail yourselves, but who is going to make sure it all happens?
Who will meet suppliers, check the tables, manage timings, answer questions, move guests, speak to the caterer and deal with anything unexpected? For venue weddings, some of this may be handled by the venue team. For farm weddings, marquees, tipis and private-land weddings, there is often nobody automatically responsible for pulling all of those moving parts together.
That is where on-the-day wedding co-ordination becomes incredibly valuable. You have already created the wedding. A co-ordinator simply makes sure you are not the person trying to run it while also getting married.
Leave room for your wedding to evolve
You do not need to know everything now. Your ideas will probably change. You may find a supplier you love, decide you want a different layout or suddenly realise that a colour you were obsessed with six months ago is no longer doing anything for you. That is completely fine.
Good wedding planning gives you a strong structure without making you feel boxed in. The aim is not tomake every decision immediately. It is to make the important decisions early enough that you still have options later.
Planning a summer wedding in Somerset?
If you are starting to plan a summer wedding in Somerset and want someone who can help with the bigger picture as well as the details, that is exactly where I come in.
I work with couples to design, plan and co-ordinate relaxed, personal weddings across Somerset, including farm weddings, marquee weddings, tipi weddings, barn weddings and outdoor celebrations.
Some couples need help from the very beginning. Others have already done most of the planning and want support pulling everything together or someone to manage the wedding day itself. There is no one-size-fits-all way to plan a wedding. The important thing is creating a day that feels like you, works properly behind the scenes and allows you to actually enjoy it when it arrives.
If you are planning your summer wedding and would like some help bringing everything together, get in touch and tell me what you have in mind. I would love to hear about it.
Gayle x